What are the 12 most favorite Tomica cars in my collection? Which 1 is my most most favorite?

16 years ago, my wife and I were expecting our first child, and I had to convert my hobby room, filled with shelf upon shelf of toy cars, into a baby room.  The cars were largely all packed up into boxes (a few STILL remain in those boxes!), with only the most favorite models getting "garage" space in traditional Matchbox 24 and 48 count carry cases where they could be easily accessed...

Now days I have many more cars, but also many, many more cases, such that the majority of my collection is immediately accessible.  But staring at the cases that hold my Tomica collection last night (estimated at roughly 500 cars), I started to wonder how I would pare that collection down again if I had to pack it up all over again...  What are my most favorite 12 Tomicas that would warrant a garage space if all I could spare was a 12 slot light-blue tray from a traditional Matchbox case?

I started the exercise with a few ground rules... 

1.  Although I picked the 12 number from a Matchbox tray, I wasn't going to force the cars to ACTUALLY fit into the tray, allowing me to choose over-sized/extra-long vehicles as part of the 12. 

2.  The criteria would be my "favorite" cars, not the "most inspired", "most realistic", "rarest", "most valuable", "most collectible", etc. 

3.  There were no other rules...  I wasn't going to require myself to have token representation from any particular categories of cars - if 100% of them were Nissan Skylines, then so be it! 

I started creating my entry list by swiftly stripping potential candidates out of the cases that hold my Tomicas.  I assembled them all on a tabletop for further perusal, inspection and ranking.   Although I intended my first pass to be about 50 cars, instead I ended up culling 109 highly valued cars out of the cases and onto the table.  That's a LONG way from just 12 favorites!







The next cull was fairly easy - pulling out the ones that I liked but knew didn't have a chance of making my top 12...  That meant that I was down to 73 remaining:

Removing a few more that I knew weren't in the same league got me down to 62 cars remaining - and the process was starting to get more daunting.













I decided to change the rules to get down to 48, a full size Matchbox case, so 14 need to come out...  The culling becomes sterner...  what?  3 Evolutions?!?   No, only 1 can survive...   And finally I got down to my top 48! 

Interestingly, my top 48 only includes 1 Tomica Limited Vintage model, very few micro cars, a large number of minivans and larger SUVs, a large number of sedans (especially Toyota Crowns) and 3 different medium duty box-type delivery trucks...!

From there, I separated them into the bottom 24 (#s 25-48)...















...vs. the top 24 (#s 1-24).  From this esteemed group will come my favorite Tomica car in my collection!













And finally sorted those 24 down to my top 12 cars.  As I looked at the contenders for my favorites, I was struck by how many of these had already been featured at various times in this blog (of course - since they are favorites!).











#12:  Older Toyota Dyna Box truck











































# 11:  Mitsubishi Pajero (featured in an earlier blog-post):











































#10:  Pontiac Firebird Trans Am (featured in an earlier blog post):

#9:  Mercedes-Benz G-Class (shown in an earlier blog post):

 #8:  Toyota Century:

 #7:  Cadillac:

#6:  Mazda Bongo Friendee (shown in at least 1, if not 2, prior blog posts): 

 #5:  Datsun 1300 Truck:  (Note that an older (non-premium) version of this exact casting - white with a heavily scraped roof - made it through several of the cullings before getting cut going into the top 48):

 #4:  Toyota Alphard (2008 casting, though all of the 3 castings are favorites along with the white Nissan ElGrand) (shown in several earlier blog posts): 

#3:  Nissan Fairlady 240ZG (shown in an earlier blog post):

 #2:  Nissan Leopard:

 #1:  Toyota Crown:

 Now that I've taken all of these photos, and written up the entire blog post, I wonder about some of my selections...  Were those initial 109 really my 109 favorites?  How about the top 12 - am I sure that none of the next 12, or the next 24 beyond those, deserve a spot in the top 12?  How about the ordering of the 12...  Do I really like the #1 Crown more than the Nissan Leopard?  How did the Toyota Century end up behind the Cadillac?!? 

Regardless of the exact final order, there is no doubt that the above models are some of my favorite and most highly prized models in my collection.  I've loved that #1 Crown since I got it 15 years ago, though the same casting in off-white is arguably equally prized (top left corner of the 25-48 photo).

If I could only have 12 Tomica models, I'd probably keep most of these 12 castings.  And if you are just starting to collect Tomicas, perhaps keep your eyes out for these...  You won't go wrong!

I hope you enjoyed the post...  Now I've got to put 109 contender cars back into their proper cases!

Mitsubishi Montero (Pajero) - is the Fast Lane Montero a good Montero - and can it compete with a Tomica?

I recently vacationed in Costa Rica.

Vacations always cause me to evaluate and regard and see ordinary cars differently.  For instance, Beijing China was filled with beautiful Volkswagons, with black early '00s Passats functioning as limousines, and mid '80s generation Passats functioning as funky-cool police cars.  It made me want to have one of my own - which was odd - since I ACTUALLY have a blacked-out early '00s Passat...  But somehow, the Chinese Passats in Beijing just looked cooler than my suburban commuter Passat... 

In Costa Rica, the car that really caught my eye was the Mitsubishi Montero.  These cool looking rugged 4X4s were the high class limousines of Costa Rica.  Never mind that in Chicago these are 150,000 mile $4K used car specials, in Costa Rica they were GOLD.  Never mind that I have a nice '09 Mercedes Benz GL500, I NEEDED to have a Montero.  So guess what I started searching Craigslist for...?

 ...and of course, this got me thinking about Matchbox cars, and whether I had a nice Montero...  ...which I in fact
do - a "Fast Lane" (drugstore brand) Montero in teal...


I normally have no respect or patience for Fast Lane cars, but this one looked nice, and was a casting of a seldomly modeled car.    

There is a lot to pick at about the casting...  The cheap wheels, the overly shiny plastic for the grill, the plasticky roof rack, the plastic baseplate without even a word on it, the teal color, the odd graphics, etc.  A lot of collectors wouldn't even give it a 2nd glance...

But on the other hand, there is a lot to LIKE about the casting...  Its nicely sized - REALLY nicely sized, big in the same way that a real Montero is big.  It's nicely detailed - a pretty reasonable model in its own right.  It looks cool dressed up with the pusher bar and the roof rack.  And of course, its a Montero when I have very few other Monteros...  This is a cool model - even though its from a cheapo-manufacturer!  Overall, a nice and valued part of collection! 


But how does it compare with other Monteros?  My other Monteros are Tomicas, which given the high quality quotient inherent in most Tomicas, is bound to make the comparison a little difficult for this Fast Lane... 

I have 4 Tomicas badged as Pajeros (Monteros), though 1 is a Pajero junior and 2 more are short 2 door vs. full 4 doors.  Only 1 is a real full size 4 door Montero/Pajero, in silver with a green stripe along the side.  It has opening doors, and large wheels (that I'm actually not very crazy about).  But overall, it is a very nice casting, correctly sized, with great detail.  If you don't have it, you should get it.  There is no doubt that its nicer than the Fast Lane, in almost every regard.  (But that doesn't mean that I don't like the Fast Lane casting...).   So no, the Fast Lane Montero CAN'T compete with the Tomica Montero - though both are highly regarded castings in my eyes!

 The other shorter Monteros are also nice pieces.  I have 2 that are non-Pajero-Juniors, one in silver and one in green with a light on the roof.  I don't like the wheels, but I love the classic Montero big front ends...  But I can't help wishing they were full 4 doors vs. 2 doors. 

The Pajero junior is a police truck, though I think I have another (older) Pajero junior casting in green that I wasn't able to find for the photo shoot. 

I like all of the Montero castings.  The 4 door Tomica is easily my favorite, but the Fast Lane is still a nice casting... 

Nissan Ambulances - by Tomica

Ambulances are an interesting segment of die-cast culture, and this is actually my 2nd post that is just about ambulances, which is odd since I'm not an OVERLY huge fan of ambulances... 

Anyway, Tomica has a huge variety of minivans (see my recent minivan post), and therefore have a lot of castings that they can make into ambulances, resulting in 4-5 distinct ambulances made from Nissan vans!

I actually have 4, with a 5th being a police van that seems like it could double for an ambulance...  I've shown them in order of age, oldest to newest, with the first one (a Nissan Caball) being more of a police van.  The 4th is the El Grand and is the same casting as the safety car El Grand shown in my Tomica van post.

All are nice castings, you won't go wrong with any of them.  As usual the older ones feel nicer and higher quality, though none are cheap-feeling.

I particularly like the 2nd oldest Caravan-based ambulance.  It's rear opens (though it doesn't stay open for a photo).  It is still old enough to be made in Japan, and has that silky suspension that older Tomicas are known for.

Overall, incredible to find 5 ambulance models all by Nissan, all made by Tomica...

(Updated photos) The dearth of Minivans in the die-cast world... so thank goodness for Tomica...!

Minivans....  One of the most ubiquitous types of cars on the road, but easily the most under-represented type of car in die-cast. 

If you ignore the VW vans (which due to the coolness factor of VW Transporters are the most modeled minivan brand), and the full-size vans (again which have a slightly higher coolness quotient), there are VERY few mainstream castings of minivans such as Ford Windstars, Kia Sedonas, Nissan Quests, etc....

1.  Matchbox did the original '84 Dodge Caravan (the car the launched and still defined the actual mini-van market in the USA) in the '80s.  My casting was the black one to the right (actual example from my childhood collection - though now I've also got it in white), and it was an important piece of my collection, in no small part since my family had an '85 Plymouth Voyager (identical to a Caravan).  This casting was a pretty nice casting, with a working sliding side door (Matchbox' first and possibly only ever sliding door).  Plus it had the chunkier truck wheels on it, giving it a bit more of an SUV/off-road look, which was a whole lot nicer than the factory K-Car wheels with plastic wheel covers that our real family car came with... 

2.  Hot Wheels brought out a slightly customized late '90s Dodge Caravan in the late '90s.  The one I've got is in maroon with heavily tinted windows and overly radical 3 spoke alloy wheels, not sure if it came in other colors.  While it's not a favorite casting of mine, it still is a decent effort and worthy of mention in this severely under-done segment.   

3.  And a recent addition, the Matchbox Ford Transit Connect.

From the mainstream Matchbox and Hot Wheels brands over the last 30 years, that's it for non-VW-minivans...  Very sad! 

If we expand to other toy brands, we get:

4.  The late '80s Pontiac Transport from Majorette (in blue on the right), which unfortunately had the un-realistic see-through roof that robbed the car of realism... 

5.  The Toyota Hi-Ace from Majorette, which came with an opening lift-gate. 

6.  Maisto had a beige European-market Ford Galaxy, that was done in typical Maisto cheapness, but was at least another entry into the list...   

I can't think of any Johnny Lightning or Greenlight or Racing Champion models...

7.  I think I've got a late '90s Ford Galaxy/VW Sharon (same car) from Siku buried some place in the collection, but I'm not sure I'm able to pull it out quickly... 

In sum, 7 castings, from all but 1 of the major die-cast producers, over the 30 years since the original Caravan/Voyager came out!  The point I'm hopefully effectively making is that for such a popular car type, it is amazingly un-modeled in the die-cast world. 

Enter the minivan savior...  ...Tomica! 

In the last 25 years, Tomica has produced well over 25 distinct minivan castings, with multiple spin-off variations that could be considered unique models on their own, like the police, road crew and ambulance variations.  If I include the recent slew of hard-to-categorize cars that might be small minivans or tall station wagons (Toyota Ipsum, etc.), the number could easily pass 35....  On top of that, most of the castings have opening features - usually a sliding door or an opening tailgate.  Wow.  In short, if you're a collector who wants a diverse slate of car types, and who values unique and well-modeled castings, you NEED to consider expanding your Tomica collection. 

As has been mentioned earlier in this blog, one of the really impressive things about Tomica is that they are constantly updating their castings.  I've got 3 unique Toyota Alphards, all amazing in a crème white, representing 3 different generations of Toyota Alphards (shown at right in order of release, with the black the most recent).  Even if the Alphard changed its looks dramatically over those 3 generations, that would still be shocking attention to detail from any other toy-maker.  However the Alphard DIDN'T change it's looks dramatically with each re-fresh.  But Tomica STILL felt the need to bring out a new casting for each generation...  For context, Matchbox NEVER updated their Caravan casting, continuing to sell the original casting after Dodge had re-freshed, and then entirely re-designed, the real Caravan...




I've got 3 different castings of Honda Stepwagons, with the oldest (light blue below) casting in 3 colors and the newest (dark blus below) casting in 2...  ...And that doesn't count the other Honda minivans, including Odyssey and Elysian...

1 of my favorite Tomica minivans of all time (and one of the first that I found - which might explain my fascination with it) is this Mazda Bongo.  I think I like it so much due both to the boxy (VW Eurovan-esque) shape of it, as well as the Eurovan-Westphalia-esque pop-up roof (maybe another comparison test is in order - again with the Hot Wheels "Sundowner" Vanagon matched up against this Bongo in the battle of the pop-up roof minivan campers!).























Tomica has done 2 generations of the Nissan El-Grand, both of which come in both normal consumer (I've got the old one in white and the new one in black) as well as yellow safety car guise, allowing this crazy photo of 2 generations of El Grand safety cars (newest on the left).  While the older El Grand's large size made it a favorite of mine (I have it in white - and it looks so nice against the equivalently sized Alphard!), the new El Grand is noticeably smaller (though it claims to be in the same 1/64 scale) and has no opening features, making it a bit of a disappointment.






















Another favorite Tomica minivan is the Mitsubishi Dilica - just a cool looking van, sporting silver and sage-green paint in my collection.

The Mitsubishi Grandis isn't quite as nice looking, though it is still a worthy effort and a good model.  I have it in white and light blue.

I have 2 generations of Nissan Serena's - the older in silver and bronze and white, the newer in an eggplant purple.  I like the older one a bit more - there is more detail in it.

My least favorite Tomica minivans are these Toyota Estimas.  I might dislike it so much due to the bland beige paint that I have it in...  Amazingly, Tomica offered the newer one in almost the same color of off-putting paint, allowing me to not like it in both generations....





This Honda Elysion (in light blue) is another highly regarded Tomica minivan of mine...











These Toyota Noah's come in 3 colors, though one of them is tagged as a Voxy instead - with a unique number on the baseplate.  However they are all the same identical casting.








A Mazda MPV (in red) and a Toyota Wish (blue) are 2 additional reasonable minivans by Tomica.  The detail is nice and they are definitively collectible, though I don't like either ENOUGH to make them favorites of mine (even though I actually owned a real MPV for a while).





Then there are these 2 unfavorites from Honda - the Airwave (blue) and the Odyssey (white).  Mostly I dislike their size - they seem too low for a minivan.










As I get to the end of this amazing list, I wanted to show another favorite casting, the Toyota Probox, in 3 different versions...  I like the looks of this casting a lot, and really appreciate the 3 versions.







And finally, no discussion of Tomica minivans would be complete without the most prototypical of all Japanese minivans, the Toyota Hi-Ace...  I could only find 2 castings of the Hi-Ace, though I'm willing to be that I'm missing a few...  In fact I know that I'm missing at least one, which is on order and being shipped from Japan as I type...

Well, that's close to a wrap on the die-cast minivan situation.  A remarkably under-represented segment of modeled cars by the major toy makers, with Tomica utterly saving and utterly dominating the market.  And if anyone from Tomica is reading this - then here is my request for you to do the Hyundai H1 - a ubiquitous and cleanly styled minivan seen everywhere in the Caribbean and Latin America....

P .S.  There is one other minivan producer - from a quality toy maker that I often forget about due to their complete lack of a US presence...  ...and that of course is Norev.  On a trip to France around 2010 I picked up every Norev that I could find, including several minivans...  All were models of French vans - Renaults and Peugeots.  But this discussion of Norevs is probably worthy of its own post someday...